Short-Term Rental Insurance in Florida

Florida at a glance

Preemption statute

Fla. Stat. §509.032 preempts new local vacation-rental ordinances

Local ordinances adopted on or before June 1, 2011 are grandfathered and remain enforceable.

State licensing agency

Division of Hotels and Restaurants, Department of Business and Professional Regulation

DBPR licenses and inspects vacation rentals rather than the local municipality.

State tax

State transient rental sales tax applies to stays of six months or less

Administered separately from any county-level tax.

Local tax

County tourist development tax, adopted county by county

Confirm collection responsibility, since some booking platforms remit on the host’s behalf.

§509.032 preemption and the June 1, 2011 grandfather line

Section 509.032, Florida Statutes, strips local governments of authority to pass new ordinances restricting vacation rentals based on their duration or frequency of rental, reflecting the legislature’s judgment that vacation-rental regulation is primarily a state matter. The statute carves out one major exception: any local ordinance regulating vacation rentals that was already in effect on or before June 1, 2011 remains valid and enforceable, which is why cities such as Miami Beach and some coastal communities that regulated short-term rentals before that date can continue to enforce those older rules even though a brand-new local ban would be preempted.

This split creates two very different compliance pictures depending on the jurisdiction: a property in a city with a pre-2011 ordinance may face zoning-based rental bans or minimum-stay requirements that a similar property one county over does not, because that other county never had a qualifying ordinance on the books before the cutoff. Hosts and property managers should ask any local government directly whether its vacation-rental restrictions predate June 1, 2011, since the answer determines whether the restriction survives state preemption.

DBPR Division of Hotels and Restaurants licensing

Properties that meet Florida’s definition of a vacation rental are generally licensed and inspected by the Division of Hotels and Restaurants within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, rather than by the local government, reinforcing the state’s primary role in this line of business. The division issues licenses either for an individual dwelling unit or, for properties under common ownership or management such as a condominium building used for short-term stays, on a collective basis, and it conducts sanitation and safety inspections tied to that license.

State transient rental sales tax and county tourist development tax

Florida imposes its state sales tax on transient rental transactions, meaning stays of six months or less, and that state-level tax applies regardless of where in Florida the property sits. Layered on top, most counties separately levy a tourist development tax, sometimes called a bed tax, on the same rental charge, and because that tax is adopted county by county the obligation in Monroe County differs from the obligation in Walton County. Hosts should confirm with the county tax collector and with DBPR which taxes apply and who is responsible for remitting them, since some booking platforms collect and remit certain taxes on the host’s behalf while others do not.

Who we write this for in Florida

Short-term rental FAQs for Florida